If we assume there is something good to be gained by not using machines (if you want to question this, I put forth the example of a smartphone and our need for time without it, even if only for long enough to sleep), then there must be some perversion of our wills that needs to be mended by putting down our machines. In other words, in some way or another, our machines are turning our minds and hearts away from God to “inferior things” and distortions of reality.

At this juncture, it might be helpful to define machine.

From our friends at Merriam-Webster, a machine is “an assemblage of parts that transmit forces, motion and energy one to another in a predetermined manner.” Armed with this definition, we can make a few general statements. First, a machine can “transmit” energy on its own. When I press “start” on my washing machine, it continues to sluice along after I leave the room. By contrast, a bucket and a brush, also useful tools for cleaning clothes, sit inanimate without constant intervention (either manual or magical). Thus, a machine, if designed effectively, requires less human participation than a non-mechanical tool we might use to complete the same task.

The second characteristic worth highlighting (which follows from the first) is the “predetermined manner” in which a machine must operate. When a tool is replaced by a machine (e.g., axe to chainsaw) and begins to transmit energy without continued human input, this requires a higher degree of predictability. Imagine if the speed and force of chainsaws changed randomly as we used them. Disaster would surely strike. Consider, too, a TI-84 graphing calculator versus an abacus. A TI-84 that spits out different answers to 2+2 is considered a defective machine, whereas an abacus leaves the burden of counting to its human operator. Similarly, a self-driving Tesla must be programmed with predetermined responses to a seemingly endless set of circumstances, not least the behavior of other drivers. In the bid for better self-driving cars, it’s no wonder that we continually hear about “human error” preventing progress. For machines must be able to predict their environments, and what is less predictable than a human being?

This is not an original observation. Writing amidst great material progress in the middle of the twentieth century, the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel observed that a society increasingly dependent on machinery naturally becomes more and more fearful of its own unpredictable humanity. “The ideal at which technical progress is aiming,” Marcel writes, “is… one on which these impingements of the unpredictable will no longer have any effect, and where guarantees of security will be utterly reliable.”

In other words, machines are predicated upon predictability and, consequently, on the reduction of the human will. They do not and cannot account for possibilities which cannot be summed up with a math equation. And, most significant of all, they have no way of addressing or commenting on mystery—the fundamental cornerstone of human existence. Can anyone explain how we all woke suddenly on earth, as one coming to, with this strange possession of consciousness? Or where we will go from here? Some might say eternal paradise and others might insist on nothingness and worms, but nobody can be certain.

Central to the mystery of life, to quote Walker Percy, is its “sense of predicament, of something having gone wrong.” Whether you believe in God or not, the problem of evil and why fates are doled out with such seeming injustice is a hard reality that must be swallowed by all. One can dismiss the Genesis account of man’s fall by apple and serpent, but it’s much harder to deny that our present “predicament” remains a riddle that no human mind can fully grasp.

In fact, this idea of mystery as cornerstone of our existence goes much deeper. We cannot make any moral statement without acknowledging an inexplicable connection between matter and spirit, between body and soul. Consider justice, for example. Why do we consider slavery unjust? Why does it disgust us? Because in shackling a person’s wrists and ankles, we understand that we are assaulting something deeper than mere flesh, violating an inexpressible possession within them—something that the religious would call a soul. If the connotation of this word makes you uneasy and you prefer a more enlightened term such as humanity or consciousness, the fact remains that whatever it is that’s being violated cannot be found in the material world.

So then, this is the danger of overdependence on machines: the obliteration of our sense of mystery. The problem is not that we will save time on our laundry, but that we will imitate our machines and believe that life is but a problem to be solved as surely as 2+2, and as a result, lose sight of life’s essence. As Marcel warned, “In our contemporary world it may be said that the more a man becomes dependent on the gadgets whose smooth functioning assures him a tolerable life at the material level, the more estranged he becomes from an awareness of his inner reality.”

There is, perhaps, nothing inherently wrong with taking self-driving cars to work, but we ought to consider abstaining from them so that we won’t unwittingly start believing that we can get to heaven the same way—that, with enough ingenuity, we can automate our way to salvation.

It’s possible that you might be thinking, “But why would I make such an absurd leap? I know that faith has nothing to do with how I drive (or get driven) to work.” Perhaps, but are we not shaped by the tools and machines we use? People get carpal tunnel from their writing utensils and back spasms from ill-fitting chairs. Why should we think it’s any different with our minds? They are shaped and molded—and deformed—by our tools and machines, and more specifically, by the ways in which we use them. Sometimes it happens in obvious ways (e.g., diminished attention spans at the hands of our smartphones), but often it is more subtle. Take dating apps, for example, where the presumption is that “finding love” can be solved for by an algorithm. Perhaps you think, “If an algorithm can introduce me to my soulmate, why should I care?” I contend that you should because algorithms and iPhones have no more room than any other machine for the idea of a soul.  They are unable to make the necessary connection between the material and spiritual worlds, and so the humans they display are bodies stripped of their essential humanity. We can use an app to find a sexual partner, but we will never be able to use an app to find a soul, either our own or another.

And so when we use dating apps, much like sitting too long in an ill-fitting chair, we contort our view of the world to fit the machine and what it is capable of offering us. We begin to view people as images on a screen, either more or less stimulating to our brains, as opposed to humans with souls; we turn our backs on the mystery of a risky, self-sacrificial love for the supposed security and ease of a math equation, and in doing so, we turn our backs on a relationship with the greatest Mystery of all. Our machines promise convenience and security, but on their own, they cannot satisfy the greatest human longings.